The World Health Organization (WHO) has emphasized the need for Nigeria to invest in public transport infrastructures in order to prevent more deaths on its roads and more traffic in its cities.
The Leader of the Safety and Mobility Unit in the Department for the Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, Nhan Tran disclosed this while speaking with The Nation during the Global Meeting of the Network of Heads of National Road Safety Agencies in Sweden.
According to him, one of the challenges facing the mobility and transport system in Nigeria is equating mobility and transport with cars adding that if every household in Nigeria has a car, the traffic would be beyond imagination and there would be more deaths on the roads.
Tran noted that the government should invest more in public buses and trains that can move from one part of a city to other cities or within a city adding that it would further reduce congestion and pollution on the roads.
“We should be looking at public transport mass transit, having the train or public buses within and outside the cities as a sign of progress and development. Because I think unless we start to think about the problem in that way, we are going to continue to have more cars and more motorcycles and I can assure you that there would be more deaths, more crashes, and more injuries.
“And on top of that, there will be more congestion on Nigerian roads and more pollution. So it is time to start thinking about the problem in a holistic way and to look at it not only as a problem of road safety but to also start to think about it as a problem of mobility and how the government can ensure access to safe and efficient mobility.
“Government must start to make real investments in public infrastructure for public transport and mass transit because that is a sign of progress,” he said.
The Leader of the Safety and Mobility Unit further called on the government to acknowledge the motorcycle operators and drivers as it would go a long way in helping the transportation system in the country.
“The solution is not to ban them but to acknowledge them and regulate them. I think the first step in regulating them would be to recognize them as legitimate operators in the transport system because they occupy a space within the transport system.
“The government’s job is not to judge them but to look at ways they operate to make it safer. And I believe that if we approach most of the issues that we have in that way, I think we would go a bit further. The solution is to ensure that these tricycle operators are operating in a way that is safer for the passengers and themselves.”
He then urged the government that when redesigning the mobility and transport systems, they should ensure that it meets the needs of everybody especially as women, men, and children have very different needs.
